The Greek Tycoon's Virgin Mistress

by Chantelle Shaw

  Anna watched, wide-eyed, when he unbuttoned his shirt. The sun had darkened his skin to bronze and the hard muscles of his abdomen rippled beneath the covering of wiry black hairs when he shrugged the shirt over his shoulders and dropped it to the floor. He paused fractionally and then moved his hand to the zip of his trousers.

  Anna swallowed but could not drag her eyes from him as the trousers joined his shirt and he stood before her, his silk boxers struggling to conceal the jutting length of his manhood.

  ‘Are you afraid of me, Anna?’ he queried huskily.

  Slowly she shook her head. She was awed, yes. Slightly apprehensive of what was to come, especially when faced with the magnificent proof of how much he desired her. But she did not fear him.

  Silently she opened her arms and he moved towards the bed. When he tugged the folds of her dress down, she obligingly lifted her hips, although she hesitated when he hooked his fingers in the waistband of her knickers. He held her gaze as he slowly drew them over her silky smooth thighs, and only when he felt that he had her full confidence did he allow his eyes to move over her naked beauty.

  ‘You are so very lovely, Anna mou,’ he muttered when he joined her on the bed and claimed her mouth in kiss that quickly became a sensual feast. Anna twisted restlessly beneath him when he trailed a moist path across each breast before sliding lower, over her flat stomach where he paused to dip his tongue into her navel.

  The sensations he aroused were new and faintly shocking, and she felt liquid heat pool between her thighs. She inhaled sharply when his dark head moved lower still. Surely he wouldn’t…?

  He would, and did—gently nudging her legs apart so that he could use his tongue in the most intimate caress she had ever experienced. Anna cried out and frantically tugged his hair, trying to make him stop.

  It felt so good. She had never believed it possible to feel such intense pleasure and after a moment she let go of his hair and dug her fingers into his shoulders as if she needed to anchor herself to something solid. She remembered his teasing comments about licking her. Dear God, she had never expected that he would use his tongue quite so thoroughly.

  But her ability to think rationally was disappearing beneath the waves of sensation that were building inexorably, causing her to arch her hips in mute supplication for him to continue his mastery. The ache inside her overwhelmed any other consideration and demolished any lingering fears that her stepfather had induced. She wanted Damon deep inside her. Only he could appease her desperate need.

  With a cry of frustration she reached down and sought to drag his boxers over his hips. She wanted to feel him push against her without the barrier of fine silk. But as he moved slightly to aid her a sharp, high-pitched scream shattered the sexual haze that enveloped them.

  ‘Ianthe!’ Damon muttered a savage curse in his own tongue and sat up, dragging air into his lungs. Never in his life had he resented his adored daughter, but right now he would happily ignore her fearful cry.

  ‘Papa, Papa, come quickly!’

  ‘I’ll have to go to her,’ he said harshly as he forced himself to get up from the bed and move away from the temptation of Anna’s long, slender limbs that only moments before he had imagined her wrapping around him. ‘She’s probably had a nightmare.’

  Ianthe screamed again and Anna’s blood ran cold. She remembered what it felt like to wake in the night, heart pumping with fear as demons haunted her. Something had plainly terrified the little girl and they couldn’t leave her.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed, suddenly acutely conscious of her nakedness. Damon had pulled on a robe and she hastily reached for his shirt to cover herself. ‘Of course you must go,’ she assured him as Ianthe’s sobs echoed through the house. ‘I’ll get her a drink.’

  When she entered the attic bedroom a few minutes later, she found Ianthe huddled on the bed and Damon half under it.

  ‘Spider,’ he answered her silent query when he lifted his head.

  ‘Have you caught it, Papa?’ Ianthe asked tearfully.

  ‘Not yet, kyria. I think it’s run away. It’s probably deaf,’ he added, struggling to hide his impatience.

  ‘I don’t want to go to sleep when it’s under my bed.’ More tears fell and he groaned.

  ‘I’ll get the torch and have another look,’ he muttered and strode out of the bedroom, leaving Anna to deal with Ianthe.

  ‘It was that big,’ the little girl assured Anna seriously, spreading her hands to demonstrate the size of the creature. ‘I hate spiders and I want to go home.’

  Following her natural instincts, Anna wrapped her arms around the sobbing child and gently rocked her until she began to relax. ‘I’m sure it’s gone now, darling. Let’s think about all the lovely things we’re going to do tomorrow.’ The ploy worked and she watched in satisfaction as Ianthe’s eyes grew heavy while she planned the next day’s activities.

  ‘Are you feeling better now?’ she queried softly. She pulled the sheet up to Ianthe’s chin and stroked her curls. ‘You don’t really want to go home, do you? You love it here on Poros.’

  The child gave a sleepy nod. ‘Papa loves it here, too. Poros is his favourite place in the whole world—that’s why he brought my mama here for their honeymoon. Do you think she liked it here, Anna?’

  ‘I’m sure she did,’ Anna replied quietly, fighting to control the sudden feeling of nausea that had swept over her. Unlike at the villa in Athens, there were none of Eleni’s paintings or sculptures in the farmhouse. The lack of visual reminders of Damon’s first wife was one reason why she had felt so relaxed here, Anna acknowledged sickly. It was a shock to discover that the farmhouse itself was a shrine to Eleni’s memory and the love that Damon had once shared with her.

  Ianthe had fallen back to sleep and she tiptoed out of the room to bump into Damon on the landing.

  ‘Sorry I was so long—I couldn’t find the damn torch.’

  ‘It’s all right. Ianthe’s gone to sleep now—and I’d like to do the same.’ She could not bring herself to meet his gaze and stared determinedly at the floor. She heard him sigh and sensed the moment he reached out to touch her. ‘Don’t, please…I can’t…not now,’ she pleaded. ‘I just want to go to bed—alone.’

  ‘Of course.’ Damon’s tone was politely neutral but his expression was grim. ‘I’m sorry, Anna, but the reality of having a child is that sometimes they need you at the most inopportune moments.’

  She paused in the doorway to her room and stared at him. ‘I appreciate that.’

  ‘Do you? Are you sure you’re not punishing me for putting the concerns of my daughter over you?’ he demanded bitterly. ‘Because, like it or not, that’s the way it has to be. I thought you were different. I thought you understood.’

  ‘I do,’ Anna cried, but her words were drowned out by the sound of Damon slamming his bedroom door savagely behind him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘ANNA—over here, sweetheart! Give us a smile. Have you got anything to say regarding the rumours about you and the pop star Mitch Travis?’

  Anna flicked the photographer an icy stare, guaranteed to freeze even the most determined members of the press pack who were tailing her through Sydney Airport. She was dressed head to toe in designer clothes. Her face was exquisitely made up—her lips coated in a chic pale gloss while her hair was swept up into a severe knot on top of her head. The finished effect was as she had intended; an elegant, aloof Ice Princess who would never reveal to the paparazzi that her heart was breaking.

  At the check-in desk she subjected the hapless reporter to a final look of haughty disdain before sweeping into the departure lounge, followed by her entourage of assistants. The past three weeks in Australia had been hell, which was in no way the fault of the vast continent or its people, she conceded grimly.

  She would give anything to be back on Poros with Damon, but after their acrimonious parting it was unlikely that he would ever want to see her again.

  She had spent the remain
der of the night after Ianthe had disturbed them torn between a desperate desire to knock on Damon’s bedroom door and wrestling with the bitter knowledge that she could never compete with the ghost of his dead wife.

  Poros would always be a special place for her and Damon—or so she’d believed—a paradise island where they had spent precious time together and first consummated their relationship. Except that they hadn’t.

  It had hurt immeasurably to discover that he had done it all before. No doubt he had once eaten in the taverna by the harbour with Eleni, and together they would have explored the many coves and beaches of the island. Had he made love to his wife for the first time in the master bedroom of the farmhouse? The same bed where she had been so eager to give herself to him. Perhaps he had even been thinking about his honeymoon night while he’d made love to her, and imagined that it was Eleni he was holding in his arms.

  Jealousy was a corrosive poison that had scarred much of her mother’s life. She could not allow it to ruin hers. If she felt this bad about a ghost, how would she cope when Damon’s attention began to stray?

  It would kill her, she had accepted bleakly. She loved him so much that the idea of him even looking at another woman would destroy her and she would become clingy and obsessive, just as her mother had been. Walking away from him now, while she still had the strength of will, was the only answer.

  But when she had broken the untruth the following morning, that the date of her assignment in Australia had been brought forward, Damon had not bothered to hide his anger.

  ‘You can’t just leave,’ he hissed furiously, conscious that Ianthe was in earshot. ‘Whatever the reason for your change of heart, between the time you were a wild temptress in my arms, and now, I won’t let you go.’

  ‘You can’t stop me,’ she replied, closing her heart to the silent plea in his eyes. ‘This is work, Damon, my career, which will always be my first priority, as Ianthe is yours.’

  ‘Is that what this is all about?’ he asked scathingly. ‘You resent the fact that I have a child now that you’ve spent time with us and discovered the reality of parenthood.’

  ‘I do not. That’s a foul thing to say. I know how much you love her and I…I’m fond of her, too.’

  ‘Then why are you so determined to hurt her? Because you’re not just leaving Poros, are you, Anna? You’re leaving me for good and running out on our relationship.’

  ‘In all honesty, how can we have a relationship?’ Anna flung at him. ‘The most we could hope for is a brief fling when our hectic schedules happen to coincide. I don’t want to live like that, Damon, and that’s why I’ve decided to end it now.’

  For a moment he’d seemed totally stunned. His face was ashen and the torment in his eyes sowed the first seeds of doubt in Anna’s mind. Maybe he did care. Maybe she’d got it wrong. ‘Do you have any other suggestions?’ she asked quietly, knowing that it was ridiculous to wish for some indication of commitment from him, but wishing anyway.

  ‘You could give up modeling, for a start, or at least cut down on your assignments. You don’t need to work, pedhaki mou. I will take care of you,’ he murmured, sliding his arms around her waist and drawing her close.

  For an infinitesimal second Anna was tempted to lay her head on his chest and give in—allow him to take over her life. She knew he would do as he said. No doubt he would install her in an elegant Athens apartment, conveniently close to his own home, where he would visit several times a week—perhaps even pop in during his lunch hour for a quickie, she thought cynically. Common sense quickly reasserted itself and she stepped away from him.

  ‘That’s your idea of a compromise? I give up everything that I’ve worked for and you give up what, exactly? I’m sorry, Damon, but I will never give up my career or my financial independence for any man, even you.’

  He gave up then, his face seemingly hewn from stone while she bade a heart-wrenching farewell to Ianthe and evaded the issue of when she would be coming back. He was silent on the trip to the harbour but as she was about to step onto the ferry he caught hold of her shoulder and spun her round, sliding a hand beneath her chin to force her to look at him.

  ‘This is not over, Anna,’ he told her fiercely. ‘I don’t know what you want from me. I suspect you don’t even know yourself. But when you’ve worked it out, I’ll be waiting for you.’

  He swooped before she had time to react, capturing her mouth in a savage, possessive kiss that demanded her response. Anna clung to him helplessly, while her heart splintered into a thousand shards. How could she tell him that she knew exactly what she wanted from him, when it was the one thing he could not give?

  His heart belonged to the beautiful, gifted Greek girl who had given birth to his precious daughter. He had chosen Eleni for his wife and even now, years after her death, he surrounded himself with her artwork as if he could not bear to let her go.

  She would only ever be a poor second, Anna acknowledged despairingly. And although she loved him more than life—that was something she could not bear.

  The flight to Paris seemed to last for ever. Anna was thankful that she was able to travel in business class, which offered a degree of comfort and room to stretch her long legs. First class travel was one of the many perks of her job but over the last three weeks she’d concluded that she would even be prepared to sacrifice her precious career, if only Damon loved her.

  At the airport in Paris she collected a hire car and, having left the city, spent a frustrating few hours trying to negotiate the narrow roads of rural northern France in search of her mother’s remote gîte. Dusk was falling by the time she pulled up in a small courtyard and stared at the farmhouse that her mother shared with her third husband.

  Damon had said that Charles Aldridge was a decent man, and for Judith’s sake she hoped he was right, Anna thought as she eased her tired body out of the car. She didn’t understand this sudden urgency to see her mother. They hadn’t been close for years but she was falling apart and she needed someone to salvage the splinters of her heart.

  ‘Anna! What are you doing here? Not that you’re not welcome, of course,’ Judith Christiansen—now Aldridge—babbled when she opened the door. ‘It’s so wonderful to see you, darling. I’d almost given up hope that you would ever visit.’ She caught hold of Anna’s hand and led her into the house. ‘You must meet Charles. He’s still working in the garden—I’ll just call him.’

  Judith turned and gave Anna a joyous smile. ‘I suppose that lovely man of yours brought you. He promised he would try and persuade you to visit. Where is he?’ As she glanced expectantly at the door Anna frowned.

  ‘Which man?’

  ‘Damon, of course,’ her mother replied in a tone that suggested there could be no other man in Anna’s life. ‘He was so concerned about you when he visited a month or so ago. And he was so sympathetic when I explained about my divorce from your father. He seemed to understand how much it had affected you.’ She stared in bemusement at the tears that were streaming down Anna’s cheeks. ‘What is it, darling? Have you rowed? I’m sure you can sort it out. Damon loves you very much.’

  ‘He doesn’t,’ Anna wept, unable to hide her inner anguish any longer. ‘He’s still in love with his first wife. His house is full of mementoes of her and he even took me to the place where he spent his honeymoon. She was so beautiful and clever, and I can’t compete with her memory.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I don’t believe you have to compete with anyone,’ Judith told her firmly as she put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her. ‘I may not have been very successful in the choice of my first two husbands—this may come as a shock, but Philip Stone wasn’t the charming man I first thought,’ she confided, unaware of the shaft of pain that crossed Anna’s face. ‘But I do know love when I see it. And I saw it in Damon’s eyes when he spoke of you,’ she assured Anna firmly.

  ‘Now, come and have something to eat. You’re much too thin—I don’t suppose you’ve been eating properly. After that you can have
a bath and bed and in the morning you’ll see that whatever has happened is just a lovers’ tiff. I don’t know anything about Damon’s first wife, but I’m quite certain that you’re the woman he loves now.’

  Anna stood in the middle of the kitchen and buried her face in her hands. ‘I think I may have made a terrible mistake,’ she whispered. ‘But I’m so afraid of becoming jealous and possessive like…’ She halted abruptly so that her words hovered in the embarrassed silence.

  ‘Like I was,’ Judith finished the sentence for her. ‘Oh, Anna, there are so many things I should have explained to you,’ she said sadly. ‘For most of my adult life I’ve suffered from a severe depressive illness, which thankfully is now controlled by medication. But for many years I struggled to deal with my feelings alone,’ she admitted.

  ‘There were times during your childhood when I was paranoid and obsessive, and your father found it difficult to cope. The truth is, I drove Lars away, but it wasn’t until all these years later, and thanks to Charles’s wonderful support, that I’ve been able to accept that I was partly to blame for the collapse of my first marriage.’

  Judith wiped her eyes with a hand that shook slightly. The betraying gesture tore at Anna’s heart as for the first time she recognised her mother’s fragility. She must have been an ideal target for Philip Stone—a vulnerable single mother with a young daughter in tow, Anna acknowledged bitterly.

  The realisation lifted the resentment she had felt all these years, that her mother was in some way to blame for what had happened with her stepfather. Judith must have believed she was doing the best for her child by providing her with a father-figure—unaware that the man she had married was a monster. It would destroy her if she ever discovered how Anna had suffered at the hands of jolly Uncle Phil.

  She would never tell her mother, Anna vowed. It was in the past and now Phil was dead and could no longer hurt anyone. Damon was the only person to know her secret and it was thanks to him that she had finally overcome the fears her stepfather had instilled in her.